


Spot the Avenger

by onecent



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Betting, Gen, Just Idiots Hanging Out, Not Really Movie Compliant, Surprise Winner, The Avengers Sitcom that Never Happened, What's a Timeline?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-03 02:06:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6592327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onecent/pseuds/onecent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small problem turns into a challenge turns into a competition. Now it's every person for themselves at the mall, and the last Avenger spotted wins all the bragging rights.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spot the Avenger

"Sir, Captain Rogers here to see you."

"Bring him on in." Tony sat up at his workbench and wiped his face with the back of his hand. He grinned up at the door. "Nice to see you this morning, Captain. What brings you down to my neck of the tower?"

Steve frowned and leaned against one of the benches. "Do you have anything that stops facial recognition?"

"Stops it?" Tony leans up against the counter. "I mean, I could probably whip something up, but it would probably involve some weird LED lights and be really distracting to wear in public. Most software programs for that kind of thing are getting really advanced--"

"Not software. People. Stop people from recognizing me."

Tony nodded slowly. "Ah. Get noticed on your run again?"

Steve threw up his hands. "They're everywhere! People with cameras, following me around. I just want to be able to get around without someone following me around asking me if I have an opinion on the firmness of pillows or whatever nonsense they are coming up with these days."

"Hmm. Definitely soft. I like to be able to sink into--"

"Tony," Steve said in a warning voice. "Seriously. The not getting recognized thing."

"Have you tried just dressing casual? Baseball cap pulled down low, ratty jacket, jeans?"

Steve rolled his eyes. "Sure, and it's useful, but it never seems to last very long."

"Really? Works pretty well for me, and I'm way more famous than you."

"What? No you're not. There's a museum exhibit with my face blown up on it."

"I'm on magazines almost monthly," Tony rebutted. "My face gets shown everywhere. You must just be doing undercover wrong."

"What? I go undercover just fine."

"I bet if we both went undercover you'd get noticed before me," Tony said, crossing his arms across his chest. 

Steve crossed his own arms in response. "I bet you wouldn't last twenty minutes."

"I bet if all the Avengers went out, you'd get noticed first."

"I'll take that bet."

Steve and Tony both whirled to see Natasha standing in the doorway, flipping a throwing knife over in her hand. She grinned at both of them. "I bet Steve gets noticed third."

Before Steve or Tony could say anything, Clint strolled up behind Natasha and leaned against the other side of the door. "That's a very specific number. Can't we just bet on who we think will last longest?"

"Last longest in what?" Thor appeared in between the two SHIELD agents. "Is there another competition?"

Steve looked sidelong at Tony. "Twenty minutes, meet in the common room?" he suggested.

"I'll tell Bruce if you'll fill these people in on the rules."

"Great," Clint said with a grin. "I love a good challenge."

\----------

The Avengers assembled in the common area to judge each other's undercover outfits and place final bets before heading out. Tony and Steve went with almost the same outfit, wearing jeans and a hoodie with a beat-up baseball cap. They had also both added glasses to the outfit. Natasha had forgone the glasses in favor of a lollipop that she spent her time licking and popping in and out of her mouth. Thor had tucked his hair back into a small bun and had a long blue sweater worn over a band t-shirt, all with faded jeans and flip-flops. Bruce was actually wearing his regular clothes, since everyone recognized the Hulk more than they ever noticed Bruce Banner.

"That everyone?" Steve asked, looking around the room.

"Not quite," Natasha said with a smirk. "Clint should be here soon, though."

The elevator doors opened with a small ding and Clint stepped out. He wore an official Hawkeye jacket, with the Avengers logo sewn on the front and back. It was unzipped, revealing one of his black uniform shirts with the purple chevron. He also had an Avengers hat with a wide brim sitting at a jaunty angle on his head. "All right, I'm ready," he said.

Tony gaped at him. "You can't seriously be wearing that. We're supposed to be undercover, Barton!"

Clint shrugged. "Then it should be easy to take your bets."

"All right, well, Clint's out first," Tony said, rolling his eyes. "Then Thor, then Steve, then probably me, I guess, and Bruce and Natasha."

"Tony, Clint, Thor, me, Natasha, Bruce," Steve said.

"I'm keeping my lineup," Natasha said.

"Same," Bruce said, and Thor nodded.

"Clint?" Steve asked.

Clint shrugged. "I'm not really in this for the betting, but...Thor, Tony, Steve, Tasha, Bruce, me."

Tony rolled his eyes again. "All right, let's get this mess on the road."

\----------

"Holy crap, Cara!" A ponytailed teenager pulled on her friend's arm, nearly spilling her drink. "I think that's Thor!"

"Watch it, Mari!" Cara stepped away from her friend and looked up in the direction she was pointing. She shook her head. "No way. You're pulling my leg."

"No, seriously, I think that's him!" Mari started to bounce up on her toes, looking at the man searching through a pile of button-down shirts.

"He's wearing sandals!" Cara protested.

"Look, he's got the long hair, and look how tall he is. Here, I've got a picture, lemme..." Mari dug out her phone and pulled up a saved photo before holding it up against the shopping man.

Cara nearly choked on her next swallow of Boba. "Oh my god, you're right! It's him! I can't believe that's what he wears most of the time!"

"I don't care what he's wearing," Mari said, grinning sappily. "He still looks great."

"God, you and your Thor crush." Cara rolled her eyes. "I still think Captain America is the best."

Mari elbowed Cara in the side. "Well if we're lucky, maybe we'll see him, too." She looked off into the distance for a minute, dazed. "Hey, do you think Thor would let me take a picture with him?"

Cara stared at her wide-eyed. "Do you think? God, that would be so cool..."

"I'm gonna go ask."

"Oh my god, you can't just go up and ask someone for their picture!"

"I'm gonna do it," Mari said. She ran up and smiled broadly. "Hey, are you...uh...this may seem weird, but are you Thor?"

"Indeed I am," Thor said. His smile stayed in place. "Well spotted. I was supposed to be undercover today."

"Is that why you're wearing sandals?" Cara asked.

"Part of it. I also find them rather comfortable."

"Can uh, can I get a picture with you?" Mari asked in a quiet voice.

Thor smiled again. "Absolutely. Would your friend like to be in the picture, too?"

Cara choked again on her drink. "Uh, sure," she squeaked. She rushed over to stand on the other side of Thor while Mari held out her phone.

"Say cheese," Mari said.

"Ost!" Thor said with a smile.

"Oh my god, thank you," Mari said, stepping away. "Anyway, big fan. Thanks for all the work you do. You're great. Like, really, really great. Just...wow. I--"

"We're going now," Cara said, grabbing her friend's arm. "Have fun shopping."

\----------

"Oh my god, Cara," Mari said, reaching out and grabbing her friend's arm.

"What? What is it this time?" Cara looked up from her perusal of the earrings and glared at Mari.

"It's Tony Stark."

"In a Claire's?!"

Mari shook her head and pointed. "Over there. The RadioShack."

Cara sighed. "All right, let's go see."

The two girls darted together across the mall to the RadioShack and stepped inside. A loud ring sounded as soon as they stepped inside, and a man from the counter looked over and smiled at them. "Can I help you today?" he asked.

"No, it's fine, just looking," Mari said nervously.

Cara craned her head to look over at the man in the corner looking at the StarkPhones. "I mean, the beard is right," she murmured.

"He's shorter than I thought he'd be," Mari whispered.

"It might not even be him! Come on, we have to at least ask," Cara hissed back. She dragged Mari over to stand next to the man. "Hmm," she said, looking over the phones. "I don't know, is the upgrade really worth it?"

The man who may or may not be Tony Stark glanced over quickly and frowned.

"What are you talking about?" Mari said. "You don't even like StarkPhones."

"Well, I know, but everyone says the new one is so great. It's supposed to be waterproof. Though I'm not sure I believe that."

"Also shock-proof and shatter-proof," the man muttered. "Practically Hulk-proof."

"Sorry, sir?" Cara said, looking up at him and fluttering her eyelids.

The man turned to her and sighed. "If you were starting with a more recent SP model, the newest upgrade probably wouldn't be worth it. To be perfectly honest, the last model was simply for production purposes. But if you have an old model SP, like SP5 or earlier, or you don't have an SP at all, go ahead and jump in all the way, since you might as well get the extra data and clarity while you can."

Mari was stupefied, watching her friend. She tugged on Cara's hand, but Cara kept talking. "Oh yeah? What do you even know about it?"

"Well I'm just the guy who designed it," the man who was almost definitely Tony Stark said, rolling his eyes.

Mari's eyes went wide and Cara grinned. "So you are Tony Stark, then?" she asked.

Stark grinned. "In the flesh."

"Oh my god, oh my god. Thor and Iron Man in the same day," Mari said, practically hyperventilating.

"Well it makes me feel a little better I guess that you spotted big and burly first."

"Can we get a picture?" Cara asked. "And maybe post it online?"

"Sure thing. As long as you've got a StarkPhone."

"Yes! Yes, I do!" Mari pulled out her phone, complete with sparkly case, and held it out in front of them before flicking on the camera with her thumb.

"You know, you can do that under voice commands," Tony said. "It's all in the settings. I put it in the handbook."

"It kept malfunctioning," Mari replied. "Taking pictures of my pocket. So I turned it off." She held the phone out in front of them and set all three in frame. "Smile!"

Tony grinned through the photo before rubbing at his chin. "Taking pictures outside of your vocal commands? That's strange. I wonder if it's some sort of bug...Well, I suppose since I've already been found I might as well head back to the Tower and see if I can't make a few tweaks in that programming. Thank you girls for your assistance. Swing by next time we're doing field testing and see how you like the next model." He waved at them as he headed out the door.

"I'm tweeting this right now," Mari said.

Cara looked over her shoulder. "Do the Thor one too. And make sure to send me those pictures."

\----------

"Ugh, I should not have uploaded those photos." Mari pulled her phone out again. "This thing is vibrating enough that my butt's gonna go numb."

"Just turn off your twitter notifications," Cara said. "Do you remember what Stark said? About already being found?"

Mari pulled up the settings on her phone. "Yeah. Why?"

"Do you think maybe they're doing some sort of game?"

"What?" Mari flipped off the Twitter notifications and shoved her phone back in her pocket. "Like hide and seek?"

"But with everyone. Where's the Avenger style."

"So you think they're all here?"

"I think they might be." Cara looked around the busy mall and grinned. "And that means Captain America might be around here."

"And you thought I was creepy."

"Shut up, this is different. Have you seen his arms?" Cara jumped up a little in place. "Where do you think he might go?"

Mari looked around as well. "I don't know. Shields R Us?"

Cara punched her in the arm. "Be serious."

"Okay, what about the sports store?"

A man wearing a bright Avengers hat and a purple jacket shuffled past the two of them. "Sorry, excuse me, sorry," he said. Mari and Cara watched him veer right toward the bookstore.

"Doesn't he like art?" Mari asked Cara. 

Cara gasped. "That's right! He likes to draw! They had a whole thing on it at the museum!" She started racing toward the bookstore. "He kept all these journals, they have some of the pictures on display."

Mari followed Cara into the bookstore, where they searched through the aisles. They had a couple of possibilities, but no one who matched the pictures. Then they spotted a blonde man wearing a baseball cap sitting in an armchair over by a window, sketching in a small notebook. Cara held up her phone, photo of Steve Rogers already pulled up, and grinned. "Jackpot."

"Like I said. You thought I was creepy. We just happened to see Thor. We had to go stalking this guy."

Cara ignored Mari and walked up quietly to the man in the window. "Excuse me," she said, waiting for the man to look up with a small smile. "Are you Steve Rogers?"

Steve sighed and pulled off his glasses. "I told him. It's not my fault, I was doing nothing wrong."

"Um...is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine. Sorry. It's just...Tony." Steve rubbed his eyes and looked back up with a smile. "Anyway. Is there anything you needed?"

Cara froze. She was stuck smiling at Steve and Mari had to step in. "Could we take a picture with you?" she asked. "And put it online?"

"Sure." Steve turned so that he was facing away from the window. "But if you two would do me the favor of letting me get out of here before you post the picture, I'd appreciate it."

"Absolutely," Mari agreed. She pulled out her phone again. "Cara, scoot in."

"I can't," Cara whispered.

Steve's polite smile turned into a goofy grin. "It's okay. I'm nothing that special. You don't have to be scared of me. I'm just a dumb kid from Brooklyn."

"O-okay," Cara stuttered. She carefully turned and sidled up next to Steve, who wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

Mari went to his other side and held her phone out to take the photo. When it was done, Steve let his arm drop and smiled again at them.

"It was nice to meet you ladies. I hope you have a good day."

"Hey," Mari said before he could leave. "So are all the Avengers here? We saw Tony and Thor, but is this some sort of hide and seek?"

"Something like that." Steve smiled and tipped his hat at them. "Take care. And good luck." He headed out with a small wave.

"I just got hugged by Captain America," Cara whispered.

Mari tapped at her phone. "I'm adding a filter to this one. Something to make it look like you're not a vampire or something. I swear, you went from brown skin to white in this picture."

"I think I'm dead. Mari, am I dead?"

"No, but you kind of look it. Come on, let's go get you something to eat."

\----------

Mari bit into her burrito and scanned through her phone. "So we have three of them already. Who's left?"

"Hulk." Cara shoved the last of her pizza into her mouth. "Whatshisname, Banner."

"Crap, I don't even know what he looks like. I mean, when he's not the Hulk. I know what the Hulk looks like."

"Google it." Cara wiped her fingers on her napkin. "There's gotta be some pictures of him, right? Under his not-Hulk name?"

Mari spoke as she typed. "Real name...Hulk...Bruce! It's Bruce Banner. Now images...huh. That's not really what I was expecting." She turned the phone to Cara. "He's kind of scrawny under all the green."

Cara frowned at the screen. "That's a notification from your twitter. I thought you turned those off."

"Ugh." Mari flips the phone around again. "I thought I did, too. Apparently I only turned off alerts for when the phone is in standby. Holy crap, that's a lot of notifications. Hold up, I need to check this."

Cara finished piling all of the trash onto her tray and leaned over to look at Mari's phone. "Hey, look down at that one. Someone said they found the Black Widow. Looks like everyone's searching for the Avengers, now."

"This person also says they found Black Widow. Hold up, these two pictures look nothing alike. This girl has brown hair and this one has blonde. Doesn't Black Widow have red?"

Cara pulled out her phone. "Lemme check this." She tapped at it for a few minutes. "There's like...three different women on the Google search for Black Widow. And not a single one of them matches the women in those pictures. How do we know which one of these is the real Black Widow?"

"Look for a group photo."

"They probably photoshopped those. Isn't she the super-spy? How are we supposed to know which one is the real her?"

Mari looked down at her phone again. She closed Twitter and went back to her own image search. "Let's start with Hulk, then. At least we know for sure what this guy looks like. And when we find him we can ask him which one is the real Black Widow."

"Good plan." Cara stood up to dump her tray. "Where do we look for the Hulk?"

"I have no idea. Let's just wander around and hope we get lucky." Mari stood up, keeping her phone open to the picture of Bruce Banner so she could scan as she walked.

"--the Hulk is vegetarian!" Mari and Cara both turned toward the overheard conversation and spotted Avengers-hat-dude again apparently talking to himself as he held up his phone. He looked to be on the same mission as the girls, and he was still muttering. "He's gotta be around here, he's gonna get hungry and need to refuel! Maybe he's at the Keva Juice?" He frowned and wandered off down the food court.

Cara looked at Mari. "You think that's right?"

"Maybe Bruce Banner is a vegetarian, but why would he need to eat a lot if he's not the Hulk right now?" Mari wondered. "I've been looking around here and I haven't seen him."

"Okay, but maybe he'd be in some sort of hippie, vegetarian store? Like that place that sells bags made out of hemp."

Mari rolled her eyes. "That's so stereotypical of you. Not everyone who eats vegetarian is a hippie."

"But what if he is? Come on, let's at least go look." Cara tugged on her friend's arm.

"Fine," Mari huffed. "But when he's not there you're buying the ice cream."

The two headed upstairs to the Earth and Stars Supply Co. to start searching. Both girls kept their phones out to a picture of Bruce and kept looking down from their phones to people's faces. After a few minutes, Cara came over to grab Mari's arm.

"It's him. I knew it!" she hissed.

"What? Oh, come on!"

"Here, we gotta go take a picture. And ask him about Black Widow. Get your phone out; you're the one with all the messages."

Cara led Mari over to the rows of incense where a man who definitely looked a lot like the pictures of Bruce Banner was sniffing at the cedarwood. "Excuse us," Cara said with a small wave. "Hi, are you, uh, Bruce Banner?"

Bruce smiled at them both. "How many of the others have you found?"

"Well, we're actually not sure," Cara said. She held out her hand for Mari's phone. "Can you tell us if any of these people are Black Widow? You can just kind of...scroll through. I think they're all different."

Bruce accepted the phone and started to look through the various notifications and retweets claiming to have spotted the Russian spy. He hummed at a couple pictures and outright chuckled at others before handing it back. "Yes, one of those was her."

"Which one?" Mari asked.

"I'm pretty sure if I told you that, she would kill me. Or at least cause me some very serious pain that I'd rather avoid. So if you include Natasha, how many is that?"

Cara held out a finger for each person named. "We found Thor first, looking at some shirts. Then Tony Stark was looking at some StarkPhones, narcissistic much? Captain America was in the bookstore, Black Widow was...somewhere, and then you."

Bruce blinked in what looked like surprise. "Really?"

"Surprised you're last?" Mari said. "It was kind of hard to know where to look for you, you know, when you're not the Hulk. And I never would've pegged you for being the kind of guy who would hang out here."

"I'm not, really. Usually. But I figured it was as good a place as any to hide out and wait for all this to be done."

"So..." Cara began. She held up Mari's phone again. "Can we get a picture with you?"

"And post it on Twitter?" Mari added.

Bruce chuckled. "Sure."

The two girls came in close again and Mari snapped the photo and immediately started uploading it.

"Thanks for that," Cara said.

"Absolutely. Though, insider tip, you two do know that you're missing someone, right?" He held one arm straight out, pulled back the other, and released his fingers at his cheekbone. "Have fun with the rest of your search. I'd suggest the rafters. The man likes to nest."

Cara slapped her forehead. "We forgot Hawkeye!" she said.

Mari put her phone away and groaned. "And I thought we were doing so well."

"It's fine, there's only one left. And we already got a tip. Let's go check out some ceilings."

\----------

Half an hour later, they collapsed next to each other on a bench, still with their heads craned up to the ceiling.

"This is hopeless," Cara moaned. "We never found Black Widow. We're never gonna find this guy, either."

"Super spies, man," Mari sighed. "Do you think they were the ones who found other people they claimed were them? Or was that a SHIELD thing to keep their cover?"

"Doesn't matter. Either way it just sucks for us. We could be walking right next to the guy and have no idea who he is."

"Excuse me."

The girls looked down to see who was talking to them. It was Avengers-hat-guy, who'd given them the tip about Bruce. "We're not moving from this bench," Cara said.

"No, that's not...you two are the ones from the twitter, right? With the pics of the Avengers?"

"Yeah," Mari said slowly. "We can't really tell you where they are, though, if you're looking. I think they all went back to Avengers Tower after they got spotted."

"Oh." The man frowned and looked down at the ground. "Well, hey then, can I get a picture with you guys? One step removed from the real deal and all that?"

Mari and Cara exchanged a glance, then shrugged. "Yeah, sure, all right," Mari said.

The man grinned. "Thanks." He pulled out his own phone and turned so he was squatting on the ground between the two girls on the bench. "Okay, everyone say Hawkeye!"

"What?" both girls said just as the picture snapped.

"So it's cool if I post this? Yeah?" The man fiddled with his phone for a few seconds. "Thanks for your help, ladies, and just as a tip...." He turned his phone around again to display the wallpaper, a picture of himself giving bunny ears to a smirking redhead. "That's Black Widow." He backed away and saluted as he went, almost tripping over a potted plant before spinning and sprinting toward the exit.

Mari and Cara turned to stare at each other. Mari grabbed her phone and checked the twitter feed, with the latest retweet from a "bartonsass" with a picture of the two of them and the Avenger-hat-guy with the caption "Six of six! All Avengers found."

"Seriously?" Cara said, gaping at the photo. "That was an Avenger?"

Mari shook her head. "I can't tell if I'm impressed or concerned."

\----------

 


End file.
